RE: FN-FORUM: Which bank?

date posted 19th January 2007 22:23

Quoting [EMAIL REMOVED]

>
> I'm in also in the situation of choosing a business bank. For personal
> banking I'm with Natwest, constantly dissapointed with their service,
> but too lazy to switch right now. I would never trust Natwest with
> anything more than handling the income of my monthly salary. Gonna
> swith soon, I promise. Rude staff, rude staff, RUDE STAFF.
>
> For a business bank, I havent seen anything beat Alliance & Leister
> for *starting* up on paper, but previous contributors seem to have bad
> experience. In terms of online security I like Natwest online banking.
> They ask for random digits of your login and password rather than your
> full login and password (which I believe some other UK banks do).
>
> Saying that, I feel more secure with my Finnish bank, which requires a
> unique password every time I log in (mostly eliminating exploatiation
> *by* data mining etc). The passwords are sent out by mail (by the bank)
> and you get 50 or so in one go. Different pin every time you log in.
> Might seem like a faff on to some, but I feel pretty secure.
>
> Personally, I'm going to go with Alliance & Leister (while researching
> other options highlighted in this thread) to start with and if
> problems arise, like previous contributors have highlighted, just
> switch.
>
> Johan

What can I say, I'm foreign.. There's bound to be a couple of typos (see*)

>
> Quoting Andy Henderson [EMAIL REMOVED]
>
>>
>> Lindsay Baugh wrote:
>>> Mike A wrote:
>>> < Banks tend to change over the years but on a consistently poor
>>> basis, banks to stay clear of are NatWest, HSBC, Royal Bank of
>>> Scotland and Bank of Scotland. They use a creaming technique for
>>> charges.>
>>>
>>> If your transaction volumes are low and you have the right sort of
>>> account, you can enjoy virtually free business banking with HSBC -
>>> apart from overseas transfers and a few other extras. If your
>>> personal bank account is with First Direct, then it definitely makes
>>> sense, because transfers in both directions are free and instant.
>>> Perhaps we've been lucky - I'm happy with both.
>>>
>>> Lindsay
>>
>> We just switched back to HSBC because we will get free banking (we don't
>> need any of the features that can incur charges). We switched from Allia=
nce
>> & Leicester because its online banking is poor and they wanted to start
>> charging us for our 'free banking' account.
>>
>> My wife is company secretary and treasurer and sent the following rant to
>> A&L just before we decided to leave. We've never had an acknowledgement,
>> let alone a response...
>>
>> It took me 30 minutes to get logged on initially and sort out all the
>> different user names, log on IDs passwords etc. even though I have been
>> using internet banking for several years with various other banks as well=
as
>> yours. After an hour the site had slowed down to such a level that I had=
to
>> give up and try the next day.
>>
>> Fortunately the first payment I tried to make was not to an important
>> client/supplier as I then found I could not authorise the payment without
>> setting up a Group and Profile.
>>
>> I then had to enlist the help of an IT specialist in the company to expla=
in
>> the instructions and help me work through them. We are a small company a=
s
>> I'm sure the majority of your users will be, it would have been helpful t=
o
>> have a simpler set-up for single users or at least separate uncomplicated
>> instructions.
>>
>> We then puzzled over the Warning message when we tried to sign the paymen=
t
>> about the 2 days in advance business. All other sites I use have a check
>> box to choose either pay immediately or enter a date.
>>
>> Why do we need 2 passwords just to access accounts - I can't see how this
>> gives extra security.
>>
>> The help text is not context sensitive.
>>
>> There are innumerable irritating details on your site compared to other
>> internet banking sites that seem to betray a corner cutting approach.
>>
>> I was not happy with your previous Internet Banking site and was hoping f=
or
>> an improvement but I'm afraid My Business Bank is not it! Please pass th=
ese
>> comments to the relevant team.
>>
>> Andy
>>
>>
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>>
> --
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>